Although the majority of staff feel they have very good IT skills, managers are not of the same opinion with 52% of managers stating staff do not have basic IT skills.  However, managers can be seen as part of the problem with the lack of workplace IT equipment contributing to individuals who don’t have their own personal IT equipment not able to pick up skills through the workplace and a considerable percentage of people still using their own IT equipment to meet workplace needs.  Therefore, there is a lower than necessary sharing of IT skills between staff and the people they support and care for causing a slower than possible uptake of skill set.  This is a problem in today's world where IT development is escalating at such a rate that even those who believe they are confident users can struggle to keep abreast of progress.  

There is so much information available at our fingertips now that those who are not enabled to access online relevant health and social care resources are at a disadvantage in being able to support themselves and certainly the people they care for.  The ‘Wellbeing’ resource for example, withing the Skills for Care website is a valuable resource as this informs and enlightens all of the care environment from managers through staff to share with all sorts of people in receipt of care and support.  Resources like this are invaluable towards positive forward momentum of the care environment and our general culture.   

My self-assessment on capability, confidence, relevance is that I am average for each heading as it seems the more I know and learn about IT and the more I apply it the more there is to know and then even more ways to apply it become apparent, and on and on.  As I said before IT is developing at such a rate, which is great, but the feeling of overwhelm and increasing frustration I can experience at times can exhaust me.  Continual IT learning is an ongoing feature in our culture now, like a new language and I do appreciate the gulf that is apparent for some is so intimidating.   

So the more embedded IT capability becomes the more normal this will become for people who use services too.  I know that in the agency I work for, making sure that those who want are provided with IT equipment has become the norm, one way and another, to help keep them abreast of how to connect and maybe more importantly how better to manage their financial affairs.